Marketo is great, but it isn't the most user friendly ESP out there
Updated August 07, 2019

Marketo is great, but it isn't the most user friendly ESP out there

Braydon Unsicker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Marketo Lead Management

Overall Satisfaction with Marketo

We use Marketo for customer marketing, lead nurturing, forms, and lead scoring. We have two power users on our Demand Gen team that live in it everyday and then there are members of our Business Ops team that manage the sync between Marketo and Salseforce. We implemented the software about 4 months ago and are now starting to ramp up our lead nurturing efforts with it.

  • We use and like the lead nurturing aspects of the program. The engagement programs are pretty slick.
  • The native Salesforce integration is pretty good, we haven't had to manage it much once we got it place.
  • There are lots of native integrations that are easy to set up. We are setting up the Wistia integration soon and like the functionality that will bring to include video in our lead scoring model.
  • The email builder in Marketo is not a WYSIWYG. We pay for a 3rd party email builder because Marketo's was so bad.
  • The basic email reporting is not very intuitive either. It has been frustrating to pull the reports we want. We haven't been able to create automated reports yet. Everything is manually pulled.
  • There is also no native RSS feed set up to automatically send our blog content to our subscribers. We pay for a RSS feed integration with a 3rd party.
  • Product Launches
  • Upsell
  • Cross-Sell
  • Prospecting / New Business
Our Customer Marketing team uses Marketo to communicate with customers to upsell, cross-sell, and inform in an effort to keep our customers happy and increase revenue. Our Demand Gen team uses Marketo to generate Marketing Qualified leads through email nurturing. We don't do any cold prospecting or outreach through the software, everything is 100% inbound.
I have used Eloqua and Hubspot. Eloqua is my favorite, but I have also spent the most time in there. I would say that Eloqua and Hubspot are both more user friendly and visual. However, Marketo's integrations are much better and easier to set up than any other software I have used.
We love the great Salesforce integration and it's lead nurturing capabilities. Every web visitor that comes to our site and fills out any of our forms are sent through our nurturing programs. We have 3 nurturing programs in place right now and have had Marketo for about 4 months. We plan on expanding to 5 programs here pretty soon.

A scenario where Marketo may be less appropriate is if you can't dedicate a Marketing Automation Specialist to run it. It's not the most intuitive software in the world, so if you can't dedicate a person to use it then it may be better for you to use a more user friendly solution like Act On or something.

Adobe Marketo Engage Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG email editor
2
Dynamic content
7
Ability to test dynamic content
10
Landing pages
3
A/B testing
6
Mobile optimization
1
Email deliverability reporting
6
List management
10
Triggered drip sequences
10
Lead nurturing automation
8
Lead scoring and grading
9
Data quality management
9
Automated sales alerts and tasks
8
Calendaring
1
Event/webinar marketing
8
Social sharing and campaigns
2
Social profile integration
2
Dashboards
3
Standard reports
2
Custom reports
3
API
10
Customizability
8
Integration with Salesforce.com
10
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Not Rated
Integration with SugarCRM
Not Rated

Learnings & Advice

Marketo has given my company a lot of flexibility in our email program and increased stability in the processes of our lead management. We learned that you can create anything you need with a little creativity and understanding of the tool. A lot of things are worded oddly in Marketo and their customer support team often says the product can't do things that I need it to do, but then I find a way to make it work without them.
The segmentation feature is pretty slick. We use it to segment all new leads into 4 target audience groups. Then we use those 4 audience groups to personalize our nurture process by routing leads to different engagement programs based on which segmentation group they are a part of. It's been really fun and we are seeing good results.
Get to know the product really well. You are only limited in Marketo by what you don't know. Take advantage of the Marketo University and get certified. The more you know the more you can do. There are lots of resources out there, so take advantage of them as quickly as you can.
There are a couple of parts of the Marketo community. There are local mug groups that are a great resource for learning and networking. I have often reached out to mug members for help when I hit roadblocks. Then there is the Marketo community online where there are lots of helpful and not so helpful question and answer boards.
I think that any heavy Marketo user should get Marketo certified and join their local Marketo User Group. The Marketo User Group has been the most helpful for me, there are a lot of smart people out there that know Marketo really well and are happy to help when you need it.